


The Physiology of Chemistry

by foxandbee



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Cocky Louis, Dubious Science, I basically have no idea what I'm talking about really, More tags to be added when I'm not so sleepy, Science, Shy Harry, Why am I always sleepy when posting?, and stuff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-18
Updated: 2014-01-18
Packaged: 2018-01-09 04:24:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1141389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxandbee/pseuds/foxandbee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>Why the fuck</em> is Louis doing a psychology course?<br/>Actually, no, the better question would be <em>why the fuck</em> is Louis doing a psychology course at <em>summer school</em>?</p><p>Or the one where Louis is stuck at summer school and hating life but then he meets Harry and things take a turn for the creepy. <em>And then</em> things take a turn for the sexy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Physiology of Chemistry

**Author's Note:**

> This is most likely horrifically inaccurate and scientists will probably demand my blood. But let's just all pretend, shall we?  
> As always, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy! :) xxx

_Why the fuck_ is Louis doing a psychology course?

Actually, no, the better question would be _why the fuck_ is Louis doing a psychology course at _summer school_?

No matter how many times over the past week Louis has asked himself this question, the answer never changes. Because Louis is taking a psychology course at summer school in order to make up the 6 credit points he missed out on when he failed Geopolitics last semester.

So, really, the best question is _why the fuck_ did Louis decide a _Geopolitics_ course would be at all helpful to his _Drama_ degree?

Louis can’t remember what he was thinking when he enrolled himself in that elective, most likely because he was probably sloshed at the time, but whatever the circumstances were, they don’t really matter anymore. All that matters is that Louis currently finds himself sitting in a stuffy lecture theatre at 10 o’clock on a Friday morning smack bang in the middle of what was supposed to be his summer break.

Louis hates life.

Even more than that, Louis hates Zayn Malik.

Zayn Malik is the reason that Louis is now facing the fight of his life just trying to keep his eyes open during this lecture about…wait, what is this lecture about? Louis squints up at the projector screen.

Statistics.

Oh, well, honestly, Louis would probably be struggling to remain conscious in a lecture about statistics anyway, so he can’t really blame Zayn. But blaming Zayn is so much more fun than blaming simple mathematics, so Louis’ going to continue doing that.

Yes, it is entirely Zayn’s fault that Louis is exhausted. It is entirely Zayn’s fault for smashing his way into their apartment at four in the morning with a completely trashed Irishman attached to his neck.

Louis had tried to just bury his head further in his pillow and ignore all the commotion. But it proved quite hard to ignore two twenty-something lads giggling hysterically as they stumbled around the kitchen. So Louis had hauled himself out of bed, stomped his way down the hallway and hissed at his friends to “please kindly shut the bleeding fuck up!”

“Relax, Lou,” Zayn laughed breathily from where he had been pushed up against the refrigerator. Which, _ew_ , Louis was going to need to _touch_ that in about three hours time. “Coming home at 4am for drunk sex is literally exactly what summer break was designed for.”

“Maybe for some,” was Louis’ grumbled reply.

That only made Zayn start cackling harder. “Oh fuck, man, sorry. I forgot it was a school night.”

And that, for reasons Louis does not wish to dwell upon, was the sentence which finally seemed to alert Niall to Louis’ presence. He detached himself from Zayn’s collarbones with a wet slurp and licked his lips. “School night?”

“Yeah, babe,” Zayn had sniggered, “Louis’ taking a summer course.”

“Fuck that’s lame!” Niall had laughed, before he’d started sliding his way down Zayn’s body. Louis took that as his cue to leave and high tailed it back to his bed. He had spent the next two hours cursing himself for renting an apartment with such thin walls and not getting a wink of sleep. He didn’t even bother stepping foot into the kitchen that morning, instead opting to buy take away coffee and then spill half of it as he sprinted to campus.

Which is why Louis is now drifting off into dreamland instead of paying attention to medians and moans. Modes! Medians and _modes_ , not moans.

At eleven o’clock Louis is finally released from purgatory and he slumps his way across campus to the empty food court on the bottom level of Manning House. Normally he would be free. Normally he would race back to the apartment, grab Zayn and Niall and drag them out to do something fun and legally questionable to kick off the weekend. Instead, today Louis must wait around for two hours so he can participate in a research experiment.

That’s right, it wasn’t torture enough that Louis had to attend uni over the summer to make up his grades, but he also just _had_ to pick a course that involved _research participation_. Because apparently the Psychology Coordinator is a sadistic bastard who thought it’d be fun to attribute 10% of Louis’ final mark to his skill at being a glorified lab rat.

Louis is going to be spending his Friday afternoon playing guinea pig to some geeky PhD student instead of doing something else. Anything else. Anything would be better than research participation. Mandatory research participation is like compulsory community service except lamer, if that’s even possible, because he can’t use it to pull at the club. _“I spent my afternoon making arts and crafts at the nursing home”_ might just get him into some sappy boy’s pants. _“I spent my afternoon with an electrode glued to my forehead”_ definitely will not.

So Louis orders himself a burrito and curses the existence of psychology and summer school and geopolitics and Zayn and Niall and anything else he finds relevant. (Anything except himself, obviously, because Louis refuses to believe his failure had anything to do with him not turning up to lectures. Really, it’s all Halford bloody Mackinder’s fault because _what the fuck even is_ a Heartland Theory?)

He’s almost late to his allotted time slot because he can’t find fucking Top South Badham Room 438, _of course_. He saunters into the Badham Building, falters when he realises it’s nothing but a library, goes back outside and wanders around looking for another entrance, doesn’t find one, tiptoes back into the library, gets an odd look from the guy at the loans desk, walks into the toilets in a vain attempt to appear as if he’s not _so fucking lost_ regardless of the two years he’s already spent on this campus, realises he’s got two minutes until his appointment, and goes back out to the guy at the loans desk to sheepishly ask for directions.

As it turns out, the entrance to _Top South_ Badham, as opposed to just _plain normal_ Badham, is a hole-in-the-wall doorway located halfway down a graffiti sprayed tunnel. Top South Badham is also full of eerily deserted medical labs and Louis speed-walks through the lonely hallways as fast as he can. Things take a turn for the even creepier when he rounds a corner to find an abandoned piano with its front smashed in and a rickety ladder leading to a boarded up window 8 feet off the ground.

It’s at this point that Louis starts running.

He arrives at Room 438 flushed, panting and seriously regretting his life choices.

When he peers inside, at first all he sees is an empty room with worktops lining the perimeter. There’s cabinets against one wall, a sink in one corner and a blue sheet curtain typical of a hospital pulled open in the other. There’s a set of wires and tubes arranged on one worktop with a computer whirring away next to it, but there’s no sign of the geeky PhD student.

“Um, hello?” Louis calls out hesitantly.

“You must be Louis.”

Louis jumps about a mile out of his skin and bangs his elbow against the wooden door frame.

“What the fuck – er, hell? Where are you?”

“In here. I’ll be out in a second,” a deep voice sounds from the left and Louis spies a doorway he hadn’t previously noticed.

Three seconds later someone is emerging from said doorway and _good lord_.

There are geeky PhD students and then there are _really freaking geeky PhD students._

Louis is genuinely struggling to believe the boy in front of him is a real person, and not a character made up by particularly vicious Hollywood screenwriters.

This boy is wearing slacks. He’s wearing dark brown, wool-blend _slacks_ and they’ve been ironed into a crease down the centre, falling too short and revealing mustard yellow socks peaking out of polished brogues. He’s also wearing a shirt, buttoned all the way down the cuffs, an overly thick tie and, _oh god_ , a sweater vest.

Is this the experiment? Are there hidden cameras in the ceiling? Is someone studying the psychology of social interactions between normal students and cruel stereotypes?

Is this a joke?

“Is this a joke?” Louis blurts and the boy in front of him tilts his head quizzically.

He squints his eyes behind mammoth glasses, held together at the bridge of his nose with sticky tape. His mouth looks too big for his face and his hair is shiny, greasy with product, slicked back into a side parting. _Jesus._

“No?” the boy says, achingly slowly. “You are Louis, right? Here for research participation?”

This is really happening.

“Yeah,” Louis replies, just as drawn out.

“Cool beans.” _Cool beans_? What the fuck? “I’m Harry,” the boy says, sticking out a hand for Louis to shake.

Louis eyes it and reaches his own hand out slowly. He’s doing everything slowly, unable to stop himself from waiting for the penny to drop, waiting for an ironically-bearded man in a headset to jump out from behind the door and scream “Gotcha!”

The longer Louis stands here, the less likely that scenario seems.

“I thought I was supposed to be meeting a Marcel? The email said Marcel Styles.”

“No. I mean yes. He’s me. Or, I’m him,” Harry stumbles out. “What I mean is, Harry is my middle name. Marcel just seems too, I don’t know, dorky.”

Louis snorts, loudly. He can’t really help it. _Dorky_. Dorky, says the boy wearing the sweater vest.

Harry retracts his hand and pushes his glasses further up his nose, a deep red racing across his cheekbones.

“Um, we should get started,” he says meekly, then spins on his heel and walks over to a workbench.

Louis follows behind him and sits down on a stool in front of the bench when Harry flutters a hand at it.

Harry hands him two sheets of paper and a pen.

“This is an information statement, it explains the study and everything we’ll be doing today, as well as some frequently asked questions and who to contact if you have any further queries,” Harry states, almost mindlessly, like this is something he’s rehearsed in his bathroom mirror. “This second paper is a consent form you’ll need to sign stating you understand the procedure and that you are a voluntary participant. Even after you’ve given written consent, if you ever feel uncomfortable or wish to stop, you can withdraw your participation at any time, your relationship with the university will not be affected, and all data collected will be destroyed. So have a read through both papers carefully before you sign.”

Harry hovers nervously as Louis reads through the documents. There’s not much that Louis didn’t already know from the study signup sheet and the email he was sent, so he signs on the dotted line with a flourish, looking back up into Harry’s expectant eyes.

“Done,” he prompts simply, needlessly because Harry’s been watching him like a hawk.

“Great, okay, so, um, I’ll be taking some physical measurements today, heart rate as well as muscle and skin activity. Is that alright?”

“Harry,” Louis says flatly, “you literally just saw me sign the thing.”

“R-Right! Yes, of – of course,” Harry stutters, slipping a finger under his collar and tugging. “So, um, I’ll be attaching some sensors to your face, two on the skin under your right eye and one on your forehead. So, uh, I’ll just start prepping you for that then, shall I?”

He pauses, twiddling his fingers together and chewing on his lip, as if he’s waiting for Louis’ instructions, and honestly, who’s running this experiment?

Louis nods at him encouragingly and Harry gives a shy little smile, dimples popping up and poking into his cheeks. He snaps on some disposable gloves and then fumbles for one of the packets sitting on the worktop, knocking it over in his haste. Louis catches it before it can slide off the table and Harry blushes bright again, clearing his throat and murmuring a “sorry, thank you” as he takes it from Louis’ outstretched hand.

“So, um, I’m just going to use an alcohol wipe to clean off the oil from your skin,” he starts. “Not that you have oily skin!” he rushes to continue, “Or that having oily skin is a bad thing! It’s not, it’s totally natural, I sometimes get oily skin myself, and umm…” he trails off at Louis’ raised eyebrow. “But, what I mean is, all skin produces natural oils, and while that’s not a bad thing, it’s not good for conducting the measurements we want to take, interferes with the signal and… So, yeah, I’m just going to clean. Your face,” he finishes weakly.

Then he slips in between the stool and the table, bringing one hand up to lightly grasp Louis’ chin between his thumb and forefinger, tilting Louis’ face up higher.

“If you’d just close your eyes,” he requests quietly.

Louis sits still with his eyes shut as Harry touches him, hands shaky but movements sure as he swipes gentle fingers along the delicate skin under Louis’ eye. He rubs over the same spot continuously, softly and meticulously, until Louis is feeling warm and pleasantly relaxed.

The swiping stops only to be started up again on his forehead, long strokes from his hairline down to the bridge of his nose, lulling him into a sleepy daze.

All too soon the movements cease and he feels Harry shift away.

“You can open your eyes now,” Harry calls lowly from somewhere to the right, so Louis blinks awake to find him leaning over, placing the wipe in a medical waste bin under the sink, and _oh_. There’s a perky little bum waving in the air, not very big but nicely rounded, and Louis bites his fingernails. That is something that should _not_ be hidden away under ugly, wool-blend slacks.

Harry turns back around and Louis tries to appear extremely interested in… clinical abrasive. That does not sound like a fun time. He gulps and shifts apprehensively.

Harry catches the look on his face and shuffles back between the stool and the table, picking up the tube as he goes.

“It’s just a really fancy, really expensive type of exfoliator, basically,” he explains. “Just to remove any dead skin cells because, like oil, they interfere with the equipment readings. It’s a little harsher than your average face-wash, so let me know if it actually starts hurting, okay? But it shouldn’t!” he hurries to tack on at the panicked expression Louis gives him. “So, um, if you’d close your eyes again, I’m going to, um, abrade your face, I guess?”

Louis snorts at that, and with his eyes shut he can’t see Harry’s reaction, but he thinks the little huff of breath Harry lets out might be a laugh.

Harry holds up his chin in one hand again and the swiping starts back up under his eye. It’s not as soft as before, there’s a bit more pressure applied, but Harry’s fingers are as careful as ever. He handles Louis like he’s made of glass and Louis feels a bit fuzzy under such focused attention.

Harry moves up to his forehead, fingers pressing in and dragging down, pushing against pressure points that Louis didn’t even know existed, but which make his shoulders drop and his muscles go all pliant.

Louis sighs in contentment and the movements pause abruptly, restarting again after a beat, even more deliberate than before.

He can feel the heat radiating from Harry’s body all down his right side and he can hear Harry breathing, small flurries of warm air puffing gently over his lips.

On instinct, Louis moves his head just a fraction to the right, chin dipping forward, and suddenly Harry has vanished and Louis is shooting his arms out to stop himself from face-planting into the table.

But the time Louis’ got his eyes refocused Harry is back over by the bin, red faced and scrambling to pull his fingers out of the latex gloves.

He washes his hands three times and dries them thoroughly twice before he makes his way back over to the table.

Then he pulls out a new pair of gloves and struggles to pull them on, making his previous actions seem kind of redundant, but Louis’ no scientist so what would he know?

“Um, I,” Harry clears his throat and starts over. “I also need to attach some sensors to your right collarbone and your left hip, for pulse and heart things.”

He picks up the packet of alcohol wipes and fiddles with the plastic casing, resolutely avoiding Louis’ eyes.

“So, um, if you wouldn’t mind just, ah, just lifting your – your shirt up a bit?” he stammers, blush spreading down his neck and climbing up his ears.

Louis grins, sharp and sly. “Of course. Anything for the pursuit of knowledge.”

He fingers the hem of his t-shirt, pulls it up slightly, watches as Harry’s Adam’s apple bobs, and then tugs the material the rest of the way off his body.

Harry squeaks and drops the plastic packet on the ground.

“I – I didn’t mean – You don’t have to – Um,” he stammers and then dives down to retrieve his alcohol wipes, clutching them to his chest until his knuckles turn white.

Louis knows he didn’t really have to strip in the middle of a university medical lab, but he can’t bring himself to regret anything once he’s seen Harry’s reaction. He simply puts his hands behind him, leans back on the stool, and smiles, waiting for Harry to gather his wits about him.

“C-C-Collarbone,” is all Harry says when he does, and then reaches out with trembling fingers to rub across Louis’ skin.

When he’s done there he pulls back and starts rambling about “diagonally across approximately 30% of your body” and “most accurate readings” and “as close to your left hip as possible.” Louis perks up at this last piece of information.

“As close to my left hip as possible, you say?”

“Yeah, yes,” Harry babbles on, still not meeting Louis’ eyes, “needs to be somewhere over a bone, somewhere with little muscle so the sensors can...”

He trails off when Louis stands up, finally making eye contact, his expression caught somewhere between embarrassed and terrified.

This is too good. Louis' always been one to push people’s buttons, for no other reason than he likes to, likes watching people squirm. So he just can’t help what he does next.

Louis keeps their gazes locked as he reaches down and slowly undoes his flies, pushing his jeans down until they’re hanging precariously from his hips, exposing the waistband of his briefs.

Louis did not think it was possible for one human face to contain so much blood, but as Harry’s cheeks turn steadily redder Louis wonders if maybe he’ll be making his own scientific discovery today.

“I – I – I – That’s not what I – ” 

“Come on, Einstein,” Louis interrupts, recognising that they’ll be going nowhere quickly if he lets Harry stutter on. “Wipe me down.”

Harry makes some kind of cut-off noise in the back of his throat that could’ve been a whimper and then he says, somewhat desperately, voice unusually high, “Einstein was a physicist, not a psychologist.”

 _Sure_ , let’s focus on the important details right now.

Louis gestures impatiently at his naked hip and Harry gulps audibly again. He gives two rough swipes before he’s pulling his hand back like Louis stung him.

Louis tries not to grin too obviously. He honestly didn’t think Harry would get this flustered, but his reaction is just priceless.

He spends almost five minutes fussing around the sink, disposing of the alcohol wipes, taking off his gloves, washing and drying his hands. When it gets to the point where he’s just repetitively tugging at his sweater vest and pushing his glasses up his nose, Louis clears his throat pointedly.

“Right, right okay, I think we’re done here, come with me, err,” and then he’s off, near galloping into the little adjoining room he came out of.

Louis follows after him and finds himself in a tiny, windowless room with a computer and a chair set up in the very centre of it. He sits down facing the screen and Harry begins placing sensors on his body with fumbling fingers, brushing over Louis’ skin and then pulling back like he’s not allowed to touch.

Once Louis has electrodes stuck under his right eye, his forehead, his right collarbone and his left hip, Harry reaches behind him and pulls forward two small, curved, metal plates with Velcro attachments and wires coming out of them.

“These go on your fingers, to measure your pulse,” he murmurs. “Can I have your left hand, please?”

Louis holds out his left hand and Harry cradles it in his own, digits quivering and palms sweaty. He gets a funny feeling in his tummy when he notices how massive Harry’s hands are in comparison to his own. His are positively miniature, fingers fat and stumpy next to Harry’s long, elegant ones.

“Alright,” Harry says, dropping Louis’ hand, removing his warmth and leaving Louis’ fingertips stinging against cold steel. “It’s really important that you stay as still as possible during the course of the experiment. The last guy to do this tried to stand up and sent all the equipment crashing down.”

Louis feels a tiny pang in his chest when he thinks of Harry hooking other boys up to his machines.

But he is not jealous. He isn’t, and it would be completely fucking irrational if he were, not to mention _weird_ , because they’re doing a fucking _psychological experiment_.

“So you know how this is going to work. We’re testing the physiology of uncertainty. What’s going to happen is you’re going to view a succession of two different types of images on the computer screen. They’ll either be normal household objects, or emotionally evocative images. These images will be explicit in nature, depicting bodily injuries or extreme violence. You’ll not know which of the two types of image will appear until you see it onscreen. After each image you’ll be asked to indicate your emotions by using your mouse to select the relevant option presented on the screen. Does that all make sense?”

Louis hums in confirmation.

“Okay.” Harry nods once to himself. “I’ll leave you to it then, just follow the instructions and you’ll be fine. I’ll come in and get you when you’re done.”

So Louis sits alone in his tiny, bare room for the next 30 minutes and watches image after image pop up on screen. A rubber duck, followed by a coat rack, followed by a blackened and bloody burn victim. Two men being hung, followed by an emaciated child, followed by a pink plastic teapot.

Goose bumps break out all over his skin and he wishes he’d kept his shirt on, wishes he hadn’t been such a smug little shit. He gets progressively more distressed as time wears on and he begins to understand why that other guy stood up and tried to run away, wishes he wasn’t all wired up so he could get up and bolt too.

He barely glances at the last few images, he doesn’t think he can stomach anymore. He just sits there, blinking rapidly, curling and uncurling his free hand in a fist, trying not to cry or throw up all over the monitor.

He breathes five sighs of relief when it’s finally over and waits anxiously for Harry to come and set him free.

When he stumbles in, looking as nerdy as ever in his formal sweater vest and his too big glasses and his too small trousers, an unexpected sense of calm starts in Louis’ lungs and spreads through his entire body, stilling his jumping knees and making it a little easier to breathe.

He finds himself watching Harry, oddly comforted by the familiar way he bumbles through his sentences and constantly adjusts his glasses.

He realises he’s been asked a question when Harry pauses in his de-wiring, hands settling, warm and grounding, around the fingers on Louis’ left, where the Velcro straps are.

“Sorry?” Louis says, a little vaguely.

“Are you okay, Louis?” Harry repeats, voice gentle, eyes concerned.

“Yeah,” Louis replies slowly, then nodding, more confident continues, “yes. ‘S just a bit distressing, innit?”

“But you’re alright, yeah? You’re okay?” Harry searches Louis’ face, his bottom lip sucked into his mouth and his eyebrows furrowed up behind his large-arse glasses.

“Yeah, yeah I’m fine. It’s just a bit sad, those pictures.”

“Sorry,” Harry murmurs.

Louis shrugs and Harry goes back to detaching the metal plates from his fingertips. Then he reaches up and carefully peels the electrodes from his face.

Louis winces when one of the sensors under his eye catches and pulls at his skin.

“Sorry,” Harry whispers again.

He leads Louis back out into the main lab and wets some paper towels, handing them to Louis so he can wipe off his face.

Harry freezes and then turns to Louis, mortified, when his phone starts ringing on the table.

“I am so sorry! Didn’t even put it on silent, so unprofessional, I’m _really_ sorry,” he says, blushing beet-red again and fidgeting with his fingers.

“It’s fine, mate,” Louis chuckles and nods his head at the phone. “You can answer it, I don’t mind.”

Harry gives another little apologetic spasm of his face and hurries to answer the call.

“Hello?”

Louis rubs at his forehead and tries his hardest not to pay attention to Harry’s low, rumbling voice.

“It’s not a great time right now, Liam.”

Harry glances back over his shoulder and Louis busies himself doing up his jeans.

“But Liiiiiiii,” Harry whines, “I don’t wanna.”

Louis pauses in his movements and fuck it, who’s he kidding, he’s just going to blatantly eavesdrop now.

“But you know I don’t like – ” Harry stops, his shoulders slumping in defeat. “Fine, fine I’ll be there. Yes, I got it. 10 o’clock at The Laundry. Goodbye, Liam.”

Harry turns around and Louis grabs his shirt, buying himself a few more seconds to school his face as he tugs it over his head.

“Sorry ‘ bout that,” Harry mumbles.

“ ‘S fine, Harry.”

Harry thrusts another piece of paper at him.

“This is a debrief, look it over and if you have any further questions there’s some contact information on the back.”

Louis takes it, folds it carefully in half three times, and slides it into his back pocket.

“And, um, that’s about it really. Thank you for coming,” Harry mutters at his shoes.

“That’s alright, anytime. It was nice meeting you, Harry,” Louis says, genuine and grinning.

Harry snaps his head up, a tentative smile on his lips and a deep pink flush already spreading wide.

“You, uh, you too, L-Louis. Really nice.”

Louis sticks his hand out and Harry grips it, palms clammy once again.

“I’ll see you ‘round.”

Louis adds a little wink, just because he can, just because he’s still a bit of a smarmy git, and watches with satisfaction as Harry’s blush takes up the entirety of his face.

Then he spins around and struts out of the room, the added wiggle to his hips only slightly unnecessary, but worth it to hear the sharp intake of breath from behind.

When he’s out of sight of Harry’s lab, he dashes back through the creepy corridors and only slows down once he reaches proper sunlight.

He pulls out his phone and dials Zayn’s number as he walks across campus.

“Put on your big boy pants, Z. We’re going clubbing.”


End file.
